The Citizen, 1986-04-02, Page 4PAGE 4. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1986.
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Go out and get it
The Bible may be right and the meek may someday inherit
the earth but until then, the people who run the place will be
those who hustle and take advantage of the breaks and make as
many breaks as they can.
That's why the decision of Brussels, Morris and Grey to join
together to form an industrial committee is so important:
somebody is doing something. Ten years from now it may turn
out to have been a wasted expense of money and effort but it's
for sure something positive is more likely to happen because of
the committee than if no committee was there at all. Several
years ago Blyth had an industrial committee and although it
didn't bring an industrial boom to the village, it did facilitate the
location of one healthy new business to the community which
now is a steady source of employment.
The option is to sit back and do nothing and complain about
how the world is against you. For a community to figure people
will just somehow come along and set up businesses there is like
someone spending a lot of money to open and stock a new store
and then not to put out a sign or advertise, just figuring that the
wonderful things they've got in the store will -bring crowds
flooding in.
There are hundreds of communities in Ontario all vying for
new business and industry. The bigger the community, the
more attractive it is for some businesses. The closer it is, to
major markets in Canada and the U.S., the more likely it is to
attract industry.
But as an insider in government recently said, it's also the big
communities that are lobbying the government most for more
help in attracting industry. The smaller communities just sit
back and hope something will drop into their laps and when it
doesn't, they've had plenty of time to make up excuses about
why the community isn't economically healthy.
We need more agencies to take a look at development of our
communities, not just in industry but in commerce in general.
We need to act like the shopping centre manager who looks over
his centre and figures out what services are missing to draw
more people. What stores are missing on our main streets to
make it a complete shopping facility? What professional
services would make the town a bigger attraction to the
surrounding community? What industries seem to be natural
for the community given the surrounding farmland or the other
industries in town?
The communities that have gone ahead in recent years are
the ones that take their future into their own hands. Does the
community need a doctor? Somebody goes out and attracts one.
Need a dentist? Somebody makes sure the word gets out saying
the community needs a dentist? Need a newspaper? People get
together and provide the funding to make one happen.
People in Huron have always been known for their
self-reliance. Brussels, Morris and Grey with their formation of
an industrial committee are keeping that reputation alive.
How much
is too much
Those advertisements by Ontario doctors asking us to go
against the Ontario government in its attempts to ban
extra -billing by doctors, are also telling us something more:
there are a lot more places to spend money in medical care in
Ontario.
The doctors are telling us about all the other facilities we
should have more of, from chronic care wards to physiotherapy
units. This, despite the fact health care is already the biggest
expense in the Ontario budget.
The problem is, how do you decide when enough is enough in
health care? As long as a finger can be pointed and somebody
can charge that if the government hadn't been so cheap and
provided this piece of equipment or that specialty ward
someone might be alive today, how can any politician keep
medical costs from taking even more of the tax dollar?
Our perception of how much medical care is enough changes
with every passing year. What we considered a modern
hospital we could be proud of only a decade ago, is now
hopelessly outdated. Frank Miller tried to close the Clinton
Hospital several years ago and when he failed, people were just
happy to have the hospital at all. Today the hospital is in the
midst of one of several expansion programs since then.
Wingham hospital has just finished a major expansion and
nearly every hospital has some expansion or other planned.
Doctors are spending many thousands of dollars to help
childless couples have children and who can really say that's
wrong? Who can say transplant programs are wrong?
The problem is that like all government spending, it can't go
on forever. But who wants to say enough is enough?
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PEOPLE 60-10 L.1 VE /A/ C7L4 ss /7/DUSES Ci9w Til KE Sl�o4JE�S
Letter from the editor
Ghosts from the past
DEAR READER,
I must admit to being a hopeless
romantic when it comes to,old
buildings. When I see an old
building being torn down like the
Queen's hotel in Brussels, or an old
barn falling to ruin in the country-
side or a house left a heap of
charred wreckage by a fire, I feel a
sense of sadness and loss.
Practical people will tell me that
the buildings are just bricks and
mortar and wood, after all and the
practical side of me will agree.
When a building is in too much
disrepair the part of my brain that
adds up dollars and cents agrees
that it is more economical to tear
down the building and put up
something that will be more useful
in our modern era.
But the artistic side of me isn't
really looking at the bricks and
mortar coming down, it's thinking
about all the people history that
was involved in those old build-
ings. I look at an old barn rotting
away and I imagine the barn -
raising when it was first put up,
how all the community got together
to help a neighbour. I think of the
sheer, back -breaking work that
went into lifting those huge
wooden timbers into place in a day
when most power came from the
muscles of human beings. Ithink of
the pride the owner had when his
was the most modern barn on the
line. I think of all the long, worried
hours that were spent waiting for a
calf or foal to come into the world. I
think of the thousands of hours of
fun provided to kids who used the
hay mow as an indoor playground.
That old house which somebody
will probably say should have. been
torn down years ago anyway, has
seen the joy of childbirth, the tears
of death or of partings, the passion
of loving couples and the warm,
contented nights around the stove
on stormy nights.
That derelict old hotel wa3 once a
symbol of progress for the com-
munity. It dates back to the
grandest days of Huron county,
that time in the late 1800's, and
early 1900's when our farms and
villages were at their peak of
prosperity, when every 100 acres
had a family on it and when every
village was filled with people who
ran industries that dreamed of
being giants in their fields.
The hotel hosted lonely travell-
ing salesmen who were staying
overnight before catching the train
the next morning to the next town
where they would show their wares
to the local merchants. There
would be the young couples on
their honeymoon, filled with ner-
vous uncertainty about what the
future held for them. There would
be the people out for a special
dinner in the diningroom, the kind
they could afford only once in a
while as a break from home
cooking. — —
A little bit of the people of the
past is alive as long as these
buildings exist. I remember once
standing on the Plains of Abraham
in Quebec City and thinking that
more than 200 years ago, the
history of the country had been
changed on that spot. Men who we
can hardly imagine, fought and
died there, their blood seeping into
the soil I was standing on. History
on that spot wasn't something in
books but something alive.
History is very alive in places like ,
Quebec City and even Montreal
and Halifax. Millions treck to
London and Paris and Vienna to
feel part of the long history of those
European cities. In Canada, the
urge is to tear down anything more
than 50 years old figuring it can't
be nearly as good as something
we've built today. But the old
buildings have something we can't
install along with the aircondition-
ing system in our new buildings:
that sense of people of the past, the
sense of connection with those who
have gone before.
So pardon me if I mourn a little
whenever another old building
bites the dust. A little bit of all of us
is lost.
Hullett names members
of waste site board
Hullett township council met
with representatives of Blyth
village council to discuss operation
of the Blyth Hullett Waste Disposal
site at a meeting of council March
18.
Attending from Blyth were
Reeve Albert Wasson, councillors
William Howson and Lloyd Sippel
and Clerk Larry Walsh.
Hullett council appointed Reeve
Tom Cunningham and Councillor
Victor Stackhouse to sit on a board
with representatives of Blyth to
oversee operation of the site.
Also present at the meeting was
Dave Lee who discussed public use
of the "Popp property" recently
purchased by Blyth and Hullett
near the waste site. He spoke of
possible public use of the site and
reforestation of the property.
Dan Steyn and Steve Fraser of
the Clinton Hospital attended the
meeting to discuss their fundrais-
ing campaign for the proposed
obstetrical facilities at the hospital.
Council later agreed to donate
$3,000 to the hospital's building
fund.
Council asked the clerk to send a
letter of appreciation to Clare
Vincent for the photographs of
council members.
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